Criminal Justice by Carney Greyson https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw Social Justice Unit en-us 2021-01-28 15:12:07 UTC 2025-10-06 12:41:29 UTC hello@padlet.com A. Concept/Definition:What is Criminal Justice? gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1155664610 Criminal Justice is the working together of different agencies to control crime and find the best way to punish people for their bad actions. There are many different criminal justice issues facing our nation right now but one of the biggest issues currently is the mistreatment of African Americans in a Criminal system. One of the issues involving this is the racial violence of police officers toward African Americans. A study by the organization “Mapping Police Violence” showed that Blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by the police the whites. Another common issue we are facing right now is the wrongful conviction of African Americans because of their skin color.  A study by the Times Magazine showed that even though only 14% of the US population is black roughly 47% of all wrongfully convicted people in the US are black. Overall issues involving Criminal Justice today are still a big deal and they have only gotten worst in the past years.]]> 2021-02-02 19:36:53 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1155664610 B. Chronological/Sequential:How Walter McMillian was Wrongfully Convicted gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1155898620 My name is Walter Mcmillian in 1986 when I was 45 I was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a young woman named Ronda Morrison. I had never gone to jail before and had no criminal record but the police decided to target me because I was black. They had no lead on me or witnesses but they could not find any viable suspects so they decided to target me. When we went to court plenty of people testified saying that I was at church when the murder happened, but they were all eventually thrown out because they were all black. In contrast, several white people lied that they had witnessed me committing the crime. In 1988 I was convicted for life in prison without parole later the judge overturned that into capital punishment for a crime that I had no part in. Luckily in 1993 after I had already served 6 years in prison the Alabama Court of Appeals decided to release me because they said that the case had been mishandled and that I was not guilty. In the end, I had served 6 years in prison for a crime I had nothing to with whatsoever, This never should have happened.]]> 2021-02-02 20:28:49 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1155898620 C. Cause and Effect:Causes of Criminal Injustice in today’s society gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156341512 In the issue of criminal justice, there are many things that can cause all these problems in this paragraph we will discuss some of these causes and effects that can lead to these issues. First one of the main causes of criminal injustice is racial bias. If a person in the jury or the judge has any racial bias they can sway an entire decision. The effect of this is that some cases are resolved from racial opinions and not actually fact leading to wrongful convictions. We can prove this is a problem because a study by the “Times Magazine” showed that even though only 14% of the US population is African American more than 47% of wrongful convictions are those of African Americans. Another big cause of wrongful convictions is that many African Americans are not able to afford lawyers. If we look at the data collected by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation we can see that the average yearly income of an African American is around 12,000 dollars less than then the overall average income (this is likely caused by racial bias in salaries). This pay gap between races may lead to many African Americans not being able to afford a lawyer which can either lead to the government providing a Lawyer or them representing themselves. With such a different amount of skill in legal representation, it can lead to false convictions working out. Another Problem involving criminal justice is the effect of how going to prison effect people finding jobs. A study by Christy Visher, Sara Debus and, Jennifer Yahner showed that after 6 months of being out of prison only around 45% of people were employed. This is drastic because before the pandemic only around 4.7 percent of people were unemployed. This means that most of the people that get out of prison have to rely on friends and family members to not stay homeless. This means that even if you were just falsely convicted for a small crime it may have detrimental effects for the rest of your life. Overall there are many things that cause criminal injustice that needs to be solved.]]> 2021-02-02 23:15:13 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156341512 D. Problem and Solution: Police Brutality/Abuse of Power gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156537344 Even though there are still many issues involving the criminal justice system there are also many people working to find solutions to them. One problem involving Criminal justice the abuse of power. Abuse of power is when someone in a position misuses their power for their benefit. Probably the most infamous case of abuse of power was the murder of George Floyd. On May 25, 2020, Derek Chauvain a Minneapolis police officer handcuffed George Floyd and held him to the ground with his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds choking him to death. One proposed solution by the organization “Black Lives Matter” is to defund the police. This would mean that the police would get a smaller budget meaning most police officers would not have as much of the dangerous equipment that they do now. Essentially this would be taking some of the power that police officers have currently away from them meaning that if a police officer tries to abuse their power then they can’t do as much harm. Another solution to this abuse of power is to put bodycams on the police. The idea behind this is that if a police officer abuses their power by harming somebody then it will all be caught on camera. The reason why people think this is a good solution is that since 2015 nearly every case of police murder has required video evidence. Also if police know they are being recorded then they are less likely to abuse their power. The final solution to police brutality is to give police more deescalating training. The thought behind this is that police spend around 58 hours learning how to use their firearms and only around 8 hours on how to deescalate a conflict. If the police were given much more training on how to deescalate a situation then there would be much less police brutality. Overall Police Brutality is a massive problem in today’s society but there are many ways to solve it.]]> 2021-02-03 01:08:36 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156537344 E. Text Feature 2: Derek Chauvin choking George Floyd to death gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156551511 This picture was taken on May 25, 2020, it depicts Derek Chauvin with his Knee on George Floyd's neck choking him to death. It really shows was police brutality is such an issue.]]> 2021-02-03 01:15:57 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1156551511 Sources: gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164371692 Works Cited
Am I Not a Human? Narrated by Marlon Peter. TED Talks, Chris Anderson, www.ted.com/talks/marlon_peterson_am_i_not_human_a_call_for_criminal_justice_reform#t-272470. Accessed 26 Jan. 2021.
Barone, Emily. "The Wrongly Convicted." Time, time.com/wrongly-convicted/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.
"#DefundThePolice." Black Lives Matter, blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.
Gramlich, John. "The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking." Pew Research Center, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.
"INCOME AND WEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES: AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT DATA." Peter G. Peterson Foundation, www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/10/income-and-wealth-in-the-united-states-an-overview-of-data. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.
Lumen. courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-socialproblems/chapter/8-5-the-criminal-justice-system/. Accessed 28 Jan. 2021.
"NAACP Criminal Justice Program Issues." NAACP, www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-issues/. Accessed 28 Jan. 2021.
Roper, Wilem, editor. "Black Americans 2.5X More Likely than Whites to Be Killed by Police." Statista, www.statista.com/chart/21872/map-of-police-violence-against-black-americans/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.
"Walter McMillian." Equal Justice Initiative, eji.org/cases/walter-mcmillian/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2021.
What Is Criminal Justice? study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-criminal-justice-definition-fields-theories.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2021.
What We Know about the Death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2021.
]]> 2021-02-04 15:42:48 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164371692 E. Text Feature 2: Graph of Racial Inequality in Jail gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164395256 This graph shows how unequal the Criminal Justice system is toward blacks. As you can see African Americans only take up around 12 percent of the population but they make up around 35% of people in jails. ]]> 2021-02-04 15:46:48 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164395256 E. Text Feature 3: Inequality in Police Searches gc26162 https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164465822 As you see from this graph black and hispanic driver are much more likely to be search by the police than white drivers]]> 2021-02-04 15:58:41 UTC https://padlet.com/gc26162/7s8m03ri0n5r6kw/wish/1164465822